Fatmir Terziu: When you return from the darkness

When you return from the darkness

Story

Freedom Street. Prishtina 2026. “Newborn” Street. The street… And somewhere in the corner darkness. When you return from the darkness, we will go together through … Eh, somewhere. Somewhere.. We went?!

In Prishtina, in 2026, Freedom Street was longer than usual. It stretched not from one corner to another, but from one time to another. It stretched and it seemed as if the city had forgotten its own dimensions and was lying like a sick body on the map. The faded sign read “Newborn”, although no one knew what the word meant. Some said it was the name of a dead architect. Others swore it was a typo, left there by the carelessness of an employee who now worked in a bankrupt office.

When you come back from the darkness, they had told me, we will go to the old neighborhoods. But the neighborhoods were no longer neighborhoods. They had become buildings with thick glass and chairs wrapped in nylon, like black furniture. Inside them sat people in gray suits and tired eyes, counting invisible coins. On the walls where photos of singers once hung, now hung graphs of decline. The decline was the only thing that grew.

Supermarkets were open on every corner, like artificial lungs. But the air was not circulating. Someone had placed a small sign on a closed door: EXIT. Below it, in even smaller letters: TEMPORARY. No one knew how long this transience would last. Maybe a lifetime, maybe a breath.

When you come back from the darkness, we will warm ourselves in the sun, they had promised me. In the city lawns, where the grass was neatly trimmed, green lizards lay motionless, like memories that refuse to leave. A winner called Miss World would occasionally pass by in a large hat, completely naked underneath, and no one dared to be surprised. Beauty had been declared mandatory, while shame had been privatized.

I was waiting for you to return from the darkness, but the darkness seemed more organized than the city. It didn’t need banks, nor supermarkets. It didn’t declare bankruptcy. It just expanded.

Then, as in an invisible court hearing, someone, not me, shouted in a baritone voice that we had to surrender immediately. To shake hands. To remove the tattoos of freedom, independence, liberation. To wipe them off like ink stains from the skin. A small crowd began to scratch their arms, as if the words had become a rash. A man as big as a rock, not me, approached the door. He flung it open, but there was no way out. There was only a large screen broadcasting the news. The drunken company, who had been laughing out loud until then, gathered around the screen as if around a cold fire. The news flowed incessantly, wetting their faces with an invisible dew. Public opinion was wet, but no one felt the water.

I stood on the threshold, thinking about you. When you return from the darkness, you will probably find an escaped bird flu, wandering the streets without knowing which cage they came from. Maybe you will find me too, waiting for an exit that does not open, reading a sign that does not change. Because in this city, returning from the darkness is not a movement. It is a procedure. And procedures, as we know, never end.

(READ: ALBANIAN)